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March 2013

A.M. Last year, in your opening address at the Quark Matter 2011 conference in Annecy, France you referred to the unique opportunity that the study of QGP offers from your perspective. I would like to ask you if you think that this is still the case after one year of data analysis and more published results.

It started in the CERN cafeteria in December 2000 shortly before Christmas, where I ran into my friend and former colleague, Lodovico Riccati. This gentleman, well known for his aristocratic reserved demeanour, was visibly in a hurry, when he asked me: Would you like to become the Alice Technical Coordinator? Let me think about it, was my equally short reply.

For the third consecutive year, the apprentice researchers will have a lot on their plate… discover the objects contained in the box. The principle? Teachers and their pupils have to discover what is in the box in the same way as a researcher would do. They have to make assumptions and perform various experiments “We tried to discover the object inside the box using a magnet and smelling different smells. Unfortunately we still don’t know what it is.” confess the teacher of the primary school of Versoix.

In 1982 a MoU was signed by GSI, Darmstadt, CERN and LBL Berkeley to get heavy ions to CERN: GSI promised to bring an ECR-ion source and LBL a RFQ Linac to the CERN site. Rudolf Bock(GSI), Herrmann Grunder (LBL) and Reinhard Stock (Uni Marburg) and others proposed to have heavy ions in the CERN PS. Robert Klapisch, then research director of CERN, found SPS more adequate and this lead to heavy ion physic with Oxygen beams in 1986, sulphur beams in 1987 and lead beams in 1994

Introduction

I joined the ALICE Collaboration in autumn 1995. At he time there was not much in terms of a formal structure. The need was however felt, analogous to ATLAS and CMS, for a Resources Coordinator to look after a number of financial and organizational matters. I joined a small team consisting of Jürgen Schukraft and Hans Gutbrod as Spokesperson and Deputy respectively, Wolfgang Klempt was Technical Coordinator and François Piuz was Test Beam Coordinator.

For some time, our section was working on pad-MWPC associated with fast RICH, promoting Cesium Iodide photocathode operated under gas. Thereby we were among the earliest contributors In ALICE for a PID system

Around 1992-3 in the ion-physics environment, we proposed with E.Nappi (Bari), G.Paic and others an impressive barrel-RICH in the ALICE frame, 230 m2of chambers.

"Imparare Sperimentando" is an exhibition in Pordenone (Italy) on scientific matters. It has now reached its 8th edition. As the title explains, it is devoted to show to a large public the main instruments which allow the progress in different disciplines ranging from nanostructures to biology and astronomy. Thanks to the tireless enthusiasm of Prof. I. Sciarratta and his team of volunteers, the exhibition brings thousands of visitors in the magnificent church of San Francesco in the center of the city and has substantial visibility in the schools and in the media.

Discussing with Guy Paic and Chris Fabjan about the motivation of building a dedicated heavy-ion experiment at the LHC and the technical challenges of building and installing the detectors in the experimental cavern of ALICE.